100 Hoboken Avenue Adds to Jersey City’s Northern Expansion

A post-industrial area near the border of Jersey City and Hoboken has been springing to life in recent years, and now the Planning Board has signed off on another development looking to fill the long-existing gap between the two cities.

At the board’s October 24 meeting, an application from 100 Hoboken Avenue Partners LLC was approved. The lot, on the corner with Monmouth Street, is owned by Livingston-based BNE Real Estate, who have developed mostly suburban projects in New Jersey including The Green at Bloomfield and The Link at Aberdeen Station.

100 Hoboken Avenue, existing conditions.

- Advertisement -

The 1.7-acre lot was previously home to an industrial facility, but has been long vacant other than some overgrown vegetation and leftover debris from a previously demolished building.

The land falls within the Hoboken Avenue Redevelopment Plan, which is one of the smaller and stranger plans in Jersey City. It consists of just two parcels directly next to the NJ Transit train tracks, the other of which is set aside for open space. The Hoboken Motorcycle Club at 50 Hoboken Avenue is not included in the plan’s area and their building will be staying put for now following 100 Hoboken’s approval.

This project will rise five stories, consisting of four residential floors over one parking level. There are 137 units included in the development, which break down as 21 studios, 55 one-bedrooms, and 61 two-bedrooms, averaging 870 square feet per unit. About half will sport views of the New York City skyline.

Rendering of 100 Hoboken Avenue. Credit: Minno Wasko

Designed by Lambertville-based Minno Wasko with planning by Matawan-based Chester, Ploussas, Lisowskyi Partnership, the development will partially utilize a brick industrial look in keeping with much of the area’s character. The elevator-building will include an exercise room, a residential lounge, and an outdoor plaza with a landscaped amenity space on top of the property’s parking level.

The land’s unique location will make some changes to the area’s infrastructure necessary. A portion of Monmouth Street that’s been long abandoned will be reclaimed and extended north from its current dead end, terminating at a circle near the end of the property. The approval granted the project a few variances for yard setbacks, minimum average unit size, and maximum utility room frontage.

Speaking of infrastructure, the site is about 1.5 miles from the Hoboken train station.

BNE told Jersey Digs that it’s too early to estimate a timeline for the project’s groundbreaking, but the development is part of a fairly remarkable transformation for an area that just a few years ago was mostly defined by vacant lots. SoHo Lofts, the third phase of Manhattan Building Company’s Cast Iron Lofts project, just opened last month, and Hoboken Brownstone Company has already broken ground at the nearby Van Leer Place development, which BNE and Pittsburgh-based McKinney Properties partnered with them on for the construction portion.

Two buildings with 1,181 residential units and over 89,000 square feet of retail space are approved for 305 Coles Street, and LeFrak won approvals in May for two new buildings along 18th Street totaling 258 apartments. Additionally, the city amended a redevelopment plan earlier this year aiming to facilitate a rebirth at the Emerson Radio Factory.

BNE Real Estate recently worked on River Park at Harrison, but 100 Hoboken Avenue will be their first solo foray into Jersey City.

The old Van Leer building was contaminated from being a metal working site before Leer. Has it been remediated? Its still there. The old Chemical plant that was in the Hoboken Ave lot was super dirty. what is planned there, or are they just leaving it?

City Chemical Corporation and Van Leer Chocolate are still undergoing remediation. You might remember that the owner of City Chemical sold the vanadium tetrachloride used to make the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, and later testified in exchange for removal of the significant fines (I know, I reviewed the files numerous times). I also remember seeing a few spill cases from Van Leer about dumping vegetable oil down the storm sewer. There are two New Jersey LSRPs involved with cleanup (all available on NJDEP DataMiner, which is open to the public).